This morning, NASA launched another mission to establish whether conditions on Mars have ever been conducive to life. The MAVEN mission will also measure the effect solar winds have had on stripping its atmosphere of water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex was the first to have contact with MAVEN this morning, soon after its launch.

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: Over the years, astronomers and scientists have slowly built up a picture of Mars.

In the 1960s it looked like a cratered, battered world, not much different to Earth's moon.

These days we figure our nearest neighbour was once an Earth-like world.

NASA has this morning launched another mission to establish whether conditions on Mars have ever been conducive to life.

Canberra's Deep Space Communications Complex was the first to have contact with MAVEN this morning, soon after its launch.

Rachael Brown spoke Glen Nagle who works at the complex.

GLEN NAGLE: We think that the past of Mars, which was a warmer wetter planet with rivers and lakes and oceans and salty seas, that the planet changed dramatically over the last few billion years so that that atmosphere has diminished, has become very thin - 1 per cent as thick as the Earth's atmosphere is today, and primarily carbon dioxide.

So how did the atmosphere change to allow that water that was once there, to be lost, to freeze and become part of the crust of the planet. And how much of it was lost to space. And this will help the scientists understand more about the whole story of Mars, its entire history and its evolutionary changes.

GLEN NAGLE: Yeah that's right, Earth billions of years ago. The atmosphere of Earth was very different then from what it is actually today. But back then, that's when life started, maybe 3.5 billion years ago.

So what was Mars like 3.5 billion years ago? Could it have been a really hospitable planet for life, much earlier in its history. Was it something that was ideal a little bit later. Or could it even still be potentially suitable for life, even with the incredibly harsh conditions of that planet?

RACHAEL BROWN: Now there are already two rovers on the surface of Mars - Opportunity and Curiosity. How will the information that MAVEN may glean differ?

GLEN NAGLE: This time with MAVEN we'll be looking at the absolute upper atmosphere. Three spacecrafts that are currently orbiting around Mars - two NASA and one European space agency mission - are studying the weather cycles of that world and looking at the interaction between the lower layers of the atmosphere and the land.

So we actually have really good weather prediction for the planet Mars, in some cases better than we have for our own planet sometimes. So we can actually build up, by putting all those pieces together, we can go literally from the ground up. And literally we're now right to the very top with MAVEN.

RACHAEL BROWN: MAVEN is expected to arrive in Mars orbit in September next year and take measurements for about a year. Are you aware how much this mission will cost?

GLEN NAGLE: It is one of NASA's scout missions. Scout missions are generally in around the $400 - $450 million price tag.

RACHAEL BROWN: Now NASA has released an animation of how Mars might've appeared four billion years when it might've supported life. Have you seen that?

GLEN NAGLE: Yes I have, quite beautiful images of a world that seems very familiar to our own world. And a place that, as mentioned, had rivers and lakes and oceans and salty seas. We can imagine if there was ever any life on Mars, even the simplest life, if we were to bring them to Earth, they would feel right at home.